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Mrs. Laing: No, I am not. That was a quite different election in totally different circumstances. We are talking today about elections to this Parliament. The hon. Gentleman is passionate about this subject and he makes his points eloquently. Sadly, he is wrong.
Proportional systems lead inevitably to weak coalition Governments. One of the great strengths of our system is that, for most of this century--except in wartime--we have had strong and decisive Governments. The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) suggested that the 1974 election was indecisive. He was right, but the right thing for the Prime Minister to do was to go back to the country and get a decisive result. That was what he did. It was not good for my party, but we are not arguing for the good of my party. We are arguing for the good of the country and, for that, we need strong, and not weak, Governments.
Mr. Alan Johnson (Hull, West and Hessle):
I was very impressed by the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn). I tell people that I used to be a civil servant working for his father. Actually, his father was the Postmaster General when I became a postman--but it sounds better. It is a pleasure to have my hon. Friend in the House.
We are talking about the Jenkins report, and our intention to give the British public a choice ofwhether they wish to change the voting system as
it recommends. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) asked my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at Question Time today whether he would vote yes or no. However, if we have a referendum, it will be not a yes or no vote, but a choice between first past the post--which is guaranteed to be on the ballot paper--and a new proportional system, as recommended by Jenkins.
Some of the arguments of Conservative Members deserve to receive a platform in a wider debate about our electoral system. Today is the first time that I have heard the argument that we need first past the post to defend the monarchy. That is a new one, but let us debate the issue.
The trouble is that we are debating a number of points upon which Jenkins has written elegantly, but which have not been read--for instance, the point about coalition Governments. We have heard over and over again that the principal benefit of our current system is that we do not have coalition governments. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) said that we have had, apart from wartime, no coalition Government this century.
Jenkins points out that in only 64 out of the past 150 years in this Parliament has a Government ruled without coalition, dependence on a minority party or some form of co-operation. The principal benefit put forward by the supporters of first past the post is tackled successfully by the report.
We have been asked to say that our experience of recent elections should cause us to think again. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) made a witty speech, but it did not address the issues. His speech was rather spoiled by the revelation by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that the right hon. Gentleman had voted for practically the same European system that we have just experienced.
We are being asked to accept that it would have been better for the people of Scotland and Wales to have a different voting system--that our experience of a proportional system was so horrific that we needed to think again about having that system for Westminster. I have heard many views about the Welsh and Scottish system. However, I have heard no great complaints from the Welsh and Scottish people about the system. In suggesting that they might have been happier with first-past-the-post system, we are suggesting also that we could have had one-party elected dictatorships on the basis of 39 per cent. of the vote in Scotland and 37 per cent. in Wales. That is the real argument that can be made from the Welsh and Scottish experiences.
Ms Claire Ward (Watford):
My hon. Friend makes the point about percentages needed to gain a majority. In the Scottish Parliament elections, Labour gained 53 seats out of 72 seats with only 39 per cent. of the vote. That is hardly a recommendation for a change in the system for Westminster.
Mr. Johnson:
That is why the top-up is there. I remind my hon. Friend that it was the people of Scotland who voted in a referendum for a Scottish Parliament elected under a proportional system.
The other great argument put forward against a proportional system concerns the constituency link. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) made the point eloquently, and it is a powerful argument for people who support the
current system. The Jenkins system is not the Scottish system, or the Welsh system, or the European Union system: it is a system adapted to the Westminster model. The Jenkins proposals would strengthen the constituency link. For example, no one could be elected to represent a constituency on 25 per cent. of the vote--as happened in one constituency in 1992--because all Members would be elected on 50 per cent. plus.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest mentioned the alternative vote system. It is used in many elections, including the elections to the Church Synod, for the leadership of the Conservative party--
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East):
It has been scrapped.
Mr. Johnson:
That is another reason why the Conservatives are going backwards, not forwards. To come to this place with the support of more than 50 per cent. of the electorate strengthens the constituency link. The supporters of first past the post have another persuasive argument. They argue that people in constituencies need to vote for a name. A local Member of Parliament may manage to convince people that they should vote for him or her against their party allegiance. The Jenkins proposals would strengthen the constituency link by empowering the voter to decide whether their local Member of Parliament had persuaded them to vote for him or her, and still allow a say in who forms the Government because their top-up vote can be cast in another direction.
Angela Smith:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Johnson:
I am sorry, but I have not got time. The issue has been debated in the House all this century. A Speaker's Conference has considered the issue and decided we should change to a proportional system. A Hansard Society Conference came to the same conclusion. At every step, from 1910 to 1976, every analysis of the issue has suggested that we should change to a more proportional system, and the House of Commons has twice voted for a proportional system and been overruled by the second Chamber. Therefore, I believe that we should now take this issue outside this Chamber and go to the British people. Taking up a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central, let me say that, if we are to bring integrity back to politics, we should carry out our manifesto commitment and allow the widest possible debate. I am confident that, when the British public listen to the arguments, they will decide to change the system.
Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry):
We are all aware that the motion calls on the Government to make up their mind where they stand on PR. The Unionist party's amendment sets out our position--namely, that the unsuitability of PR is well proven and that the House should say so and be done with it, in all its different forms in all of the United Kingdom. We have rather more experience of PR than anyone else, because we have used it for a long time.
Our amendment would remove from the motion any reference to referendums, because they are not our favourite way of proceeding. They shift the decision from this House to the people, and that is a cop-out for Members of Parliament who are elected to exercise their judgment on behalf of their constituents after carefully examining the issues. That opportunity is denied to the vast majority of those who vote for us.
Mrs. Anne Campbell:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ross:
I am sorry, but I do not have time.
This debate is timely, coming, as it does, when the electoral consequences of using the party list system for the first time in Great Britain is fresh in our minds. The recent election, although the turnout was very low, does hint at the power of PR systems to create new voting patterns among the electorate. Events in Great Britain are starting down the same route as has been followed in Northern Ireland, where the single transferable vote system has been used for many years for local government, European and Assembly elections.
I well recall the despair of the opponents of the Unionist party when the province enjoyed the benefits of the simple majority system of voting. I recall equally well the squawks about the Unionist monolith and how it had to be broken down into the various components of that political movement. Those who sought to achieve that of course averred that, if only it were done, any reasonably sized block of the electorate could elect a representative of their own political view to whom they could appeal.
The proponents of the change clearly believed that, if Unionism were splintered, all in the garden would be rosy and that we would all live happily ever after. I wish that that were so, but it has not happened. The opponents of first past the post clearly understood that PR systems do not draw political activists together into large broad-church parties: instead, they create divisions. The resulting smaller groups are then in endless competition with each other, within the watershed of their different major political philosophies--in Northern Ireland, essentially within the two dominant political elements: Unionism and Irish nationalism. The fissiparous nature and effect of PR systems meant that it became almost impossible to create a consensus on political action within the major blocs--never mind between them. That is still a factor in Northern Ireland.
The first-past-the-post system presents the manipulators of party patronage with a great difficulty, in that they cannot control the selection of a particular candidate. We should all welcome that. Selection rests, by and large, with the local party and the electors, who happily and regularly select and elect people of whom the leadership does not approve. I wonder whether the esteemed father of the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn), who made his maiden speech today, would have been selected and elected if the party leadership had had the choice. Such dissident voices within the party structure are often vital new ingredients in precipitating internal debate and the evolution of party policies.
The Home Secretary made an astonishing statement today when he said that the European Parliament was a representative body and not one from which a Government are drawn. It must follow that the
Government favour a system which gives a clear-cut decision, and none does that better than the first-past-the-post system. I also am very much in favour of the capacity of the simple majority system to inflict occasional mass extinctions of particular groups of politicians. That is a painful experience, but it drives the critical re-examination of attitude and policy that is needed on occasion.
6.34 pm
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